Black History Month: Wyoming County was active on the Underground Railroad – The Daily News Online

WARSAW To celebrate Black History Month, the Wyoming County Chamber of Commerce & Tourism is sharing the unique history that took place within the county.

For example, did you know:

Americas first anti-slavery political party was organized in Wyoming County at the Warsaw Presbyterian Church in 1839.

Wyoming County grew to have the second largest number of conductors or station masters in New York State after Monroe County. The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 made it illegal to harbor or help fugitive slaves.

For that reason, the events of the Underground Railroad were shrouded in secrecy. The accounts in Wyoming County were gleaned from the records of town historians, private family letters and known publications.

Though many of the buildings that were involved in the railroad no longer stand, there is sufficient evidence to document the part Wyoming County played in helping escaped slaves find freedom. Called Shooflies, those who played a role in the Underground Railroad often led double lives businessmen by day, conductors at night.

They spoke in code: a depot was a safe house; freight or packages were slaves. They built hidden boxes in wagons, trap doors in floors, false walls and tunnels in their homes and barns.

The Underground Railroad followed waterways where escaped slaves could hide, sometimes using reeds to breathe underwater.

The watery refuge caused the hunting dogs tracking the runaways to lose the scent. Slaves learned where these waterways came out and they followed signs, sometimes the constellations in the night sky sometimes the patterned squares of quilts hung on fences and trees pointed the way.

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Black History Month: Wyoming County was active on the Underground Railroad - The Daily News Online